


three doors down (and half in love)

by jjokkiri



Category: UP10TION
Genre: Childhood Friends, Cute boys kissing, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Post-High School, Pre-Relationship, Underage Drinking, and wooseok is whipped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 05:17:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20886743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjokkiri/pseuds/jjokkiri
Summary: All Wooseok’s life, he’s lived three doors down from his best friend. It’s Wooseok’s last day in the city and that’s the problem. That’s the simple problem, the matter of the fact. He doesn’t want to be far from Jinhyuk at all.





	three doors down (and half in love)

There’s something too dreadful about the thought of being separated from your childhood best friend. There’s something petrifying about stepping away from the things you are used to. Leaving high school and moving onto what you could only hope would be bigger and better things were a rush of nerves and too many unknown things. Kim Wooseok finds comfort in the things that were familiar, finds comfort in the things he doesn’t want to leave behind when he has to turn and leave this city behind.

At eighteen, he’s young and he wants to live in the moment. The ideas marry kindly—he can have all that he wants if only he’s willing to let go of everything he is used to. He can have everything he wants at a naive eighteen. He can have it in a city where no one knows who he is, in a city where no one whispers rumours about the smart boy who is bound to have a bright future, in a city where he doesn’t have his best friend to ground him when he needs him most.

But it’s simply too hard to be somewhere far without his best friend to ground him. He always needs him the most.

“I don’t want to leave,” Wooseok declares.

He’s sprawled across the sofa in the living room of his best friend’s house, his head uncomfortably rested on the armrest, a cushion on his stomach, and a can of beer in his hands.

The weekend before he leaves is lonely. His parents are away on an overseas business trip.

He takes it upon himself to walk over to his best friend’s house, three doors down the street. Lee Jinhyuk welcomes him with a grin and a declaration that his parents are out (“They took my sister to a musical and I really didn’t want to go,” he tells him as he ushers Wooseok into the house).

They take their liberties with the cans of beer stacked in the refrigerator.

Three hours after they pull the alcohol from the fridge, Wooseok is lying on the sofa, just a little more than tipsy. Jinhyuk isn’t far behind him. But the older boy knows how to control his intake a little better than Wooseok. Jinhyuk always has been better at self-control than Wooseok. And if it makes Wooseok feel any better about it, Jinhyuk insists that—after all—it was easier to hide Wooseok in his room and pretend they haven’t been drinking if Jinhyuk is sober enough to explain it to his parents when they got home. 

But the clock mounted on the wall reads an hour to midnight and Wooseok is certain that Jinhyuk’s parents will come home to see them sprawled in the living room at any moment.

They won’t get out of it too cleanly this time. Even knowing that, though, they don’t care.

The days since their high school graduation suddenly feel too far away. The months of the summer passed by too quickly and Wooseok is meant to head to his dormitory, so far away from his hometown, come morning. Wooseok is meant to leave Jinhyuk come morning. He doesn’t want to.

It’s Wooseok’s last day in the city, the last day he can spend with Jinhyuk living three doors down from him. He doesn’t want to, so he doesn’t care that they’ll get into trouble for drinking. It doesn’t make any sense, but Wooseok justifies his own thoughts with the hiss of the tab being pulled on his can of beer.

“What do you mean you don’t want to leave? You got into your first choice of universities. You’re going to have a great time at university, Wooseok,” Jinhyuk tells him. He sounds like he doesn’t believe it at all. The taller boy grins at him, bright and cheerful like he always was. There was a can of beer between Jinhyuk’s legs as he sat on the floor and looks up at Wooseok. “We both know you will.”

“How am I going to have a good time without you?” he frowns. Wooseok takes a swig from the can and furrows his eyebrows in disdain at the mere thought.

_The mere thought of being without Jinhyuk. _He doesn’t like it at all.

He should have thought about it before he applied to study so far from home.

Jinhyuk laughs at that. And the sound of his laughter almost seems to echo around Wooseok, a bright and cheerful sound spiralling around him. It might have been the intoxication but it also could have been that heady rush Wooseok gets whenever he looks Jinhyuk in the eye and thinks _you’re so beautiful._

Wooseok turns his head to look at Jinhyuk. The older boy has his head thrown back against the soft cushion of the sofa, just by Wooseok’s middle. If Wooseok simply raised his hand, he could run his fingers through Jinhyuk’s dark hair. From his angle, Jinhyuk is all smooth edges and sharp features; pretty. _Always so pretty, always was. _Wooseok’s eyes linger on his best friend’s profile, silent and entranced.

“You can have a good time without me,” Jinhyuk tells him. Wooseok almost doesn’t register that Jinhyuk is speaking. The older boy turns his head to look at Wooseok, “Do you remember that house party you were invited to last year?”

Wooseok groans, _“Don’t.”_

“Why?” Jinhyuk’s eyes twinkle with mischief. The corners of his lips pull up into a charming smile, pretty as ever. Wooseok knows that he’s staring but Jinhyuk is used to having Wooseok’s eyes on him. “Our whole graduating class likes to talk about that night.”

_Wooseok_ doesn’t like talking about that night. Jinhyuk knows that. Jinhyuk also knows that Wooseok would willingly throttle any of their friends if they even dared to think about talking about that night. But Jinhyuk is all sweet smiles and bright eyes and Wooseok lets him do whatever he wants. They call it ‘the benefits of being best friends’.

(A small part of Wooseok’s mind calls it ‘being hopelessly in love with your best friend’.)

“It’s exactly why I’m never going to another party without you,” Wooseok points out. Jinhyuk grins.

He’s quick to make jabs at Wooseok, playfully. “Are you not willing to go to another party without me or are you not willing to play_ Truth or Dare _with strangers without my supervision?”

The younger boy scoffs. He turns away from Jinhyuk with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’m never playing a game of Truth or Dare ever again,” Wooseok replies. Jinhyuk hums.

“What if we play now?”

Wooseok fixes Jinhyuk with a confused look, “You and me?”

“Me and you,” Jinhyuk replies with a nod.

“Just us?”

“Why not?” Jinhyuk shrugs his shoulders. There’s something so nonchalant about the way that Jinhyuk says it. Wooseok supposes he’s right—they have never needed anyone else to have fun; Wooseok never needed anyone other than Jinhyuk to have a good time. “What else are we going to do? Keep drinking until we pass out?”

“You know, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all,” Wooseok replies with his eyebrow arched. “If my parents can’t find me in the morning, I won’t have to go to university.”

Jinhyuk snorts. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives Wooseok a sidelong glance, “You paid so much money to go to school and you’re going to hide from it because you don’t want to go?”

“Isn’t that what everyone does?”

“Maybe,” Jinhyuk laughs and, for a second, Wooseok forgets that he’s in the middle of a conversation because he’s too enraptured by the curve of Jinhyuk’s lips and the bright sound of his laugh.

He forgets entirely about the conversation at hand until the older boy tilts his head and grins at him—Wooseok almost jolts out of his trance. He shakes himself out of it, hoping Jinhyuk doesn’t notice his panic.

“Your parents would also immediately come to my house if they came back to your place and didn’t see you. We’ve been best friends for years, Wooseok. They expect me to know the whereabouts of their precious son, their dearest only child, at all times.” Jinhyuk shrugs, “And besides, I can’t lie to your mom.”

Wooseok blinks at him. “Can you lie to my dad?”

Jinhyuk hesitates for a second. He furrows his brows in thought. The older boy tilts his head, “Once, I told him that you were at cram school when you were actually sleeping in my room.”

“Perfect,” Wooseok replies. “Let’s hope that he’s the one who comes looking for me.”

Jinhyuk laughs at him.

“And what happens when they file a missing person report for you?”

Wooseok frowns, immediately.

_“… dammit.”_

Jinhyuk laughs, “It’s not a good idea at all, Wooseok. You need to think a little more about your plans. What would you do without me, hm?”

Wooseok takes a sip of his beer with a stubborn frown on his lips. “That’s what I’m _saying_.”

Jinhyuk snorts, “You can live without me. I’ll just be a phone call away. Or a text, since you hate phone calls so much.”

Wooseok pouts at that. He doesn’t _want_ Jinhyuk to be a phone call away. That’s the simple problem, the matter of the fact. He doesn’t want to be far from Jinhyuk at all. What he wants—in the most ideal universe—is to stay exactly where he is. He wants to be a couple of doors down from Jinhyuk, wants to be able to run down the street and shriek Jinhyuk’s name—disturb all their neighbours—until the older boy runs out of his house to meet him halfway.

Jinhyuk seems oblivious to his internal struggle. Or if he’s perfectly aware, he doesn’t want to bring down the mood. Wooseok wouldn’t put it past Jinhyuk to do something like that.

The older boy grins at him, eyes twinkling. Wooseok looks at him, silently.

“So, do you want to play?”

_Right._

“No,” Wooseok retorts. Jinhyuk raises an eyebrow at him. Wooseok deflates, “… yes.”

Jinhyuk is immediately excited about it.

The other boy leans back against Wooseok’s legs with a smile, “Truth or dare, Wooseok!”

He’s not willing to do whatever Jinhyuk has planned in his head. He’s known Jinhyuk long enough to know that trusting Jinhyuk in any kind of game is a mistake. Hesitantly, he answers, “… truth.”

Jinhyuk doesn’t even bat an eyelash before he asks, “You like someone, right?”

Wooseok immediately wants to change his mind.

He clears his throat, “… dare.”

Jinhyuk narrows his eyes at the younger boy, suspiciously. He isn’t willing to drop the topic.

And truthfully, Wooseok wouldn’t drop it either if Jinhyuk reacted in the same manner he did.

The taller boy presses his inquiry, “I dare you to tell me who you have a crush on.”

Wooseok shifts his eyes to the left, away from Jinhyuk.

“I don’t want to play anymore.”

Jinhyuk laughs, “Hey, why are we keeping secrets?”

“I don’t want to say it,” Wooseok replies. He buries his face into one of the cushions on the sofa, lifts it up and smushes it against his face, “It’s embarrassing.”

Jinhyuk studies his best friend for a moment, curious eyes on the younger boy’s hidden form. The longer the silence rests between them, the more uneasy Wooseok feels. He peeks out from the edge of the cushion in his hands, eyes searching for Jinhyuk’s. He doesn’t need to look far; the older boy is staring right at him.

Wooseok’s heart jolts in his chest. He hopes he can blame the flush of his cheeks on intoxication.

Jinhyuk breaks the silence.

“You know, for the longest time, I thought you had a crush on Yein.”

Wooseok gasps; scandalized. He shoves the cushion to the side and sits up on the sofa to look at Jinhyuk.

“I do _not_ have a crush on Yein,” Wooseok squawks. _I like you._

“Why are you reacting so harshly? Yein is cute,” Jinhyuk laughs. He looks amused. He tilts his head with an arch of his brow, “Yein is, like, really cute.”

Wooseok huffs. He crosses his arms over his chest, “I’m not saying that he isn’t cute! He’s very cute! It doesn’t mean that I need like him, though.”

Jinhyuk laughs, eyes twinkling with interest. Wooseok denies everything with an amusing passion.

“Fine, just tell me if they’re in our year.”

Wooseok glares at him, “I’m not into younger men.”

Jinhyuk purses his lips, thoughtfully, “Not into younger men? Well, Yein is like a week and a half younger than you… so, _definitely_ not Yein.”

“I don’t have a crush on Yein!” _I have a crush on you!_

“Okay, okay,” Jinhyuk laughs. He grins, “Less competition.”

Wooseok narrows his eyes, “What do you mean by _competition_?”

Jinhyuk hesitates. For a second, Jinhyuk looks flustered. Wooseok wonders if it’s just his imagination.

He blinks rapidly, “Um… like… for your attention. If you don’t like Yein then I have nothing to be afraid of. I’m probably better than any guy you could ever have a crush on. I just can’t beat Yein.” Jinhyuk shifts his eyes nervously. Wooseok doesn’t believe him for a second. “Um… yeah, truth or dare?”

“You already had your turn! It’s my turn!” Wooseok exclaims. He huffs, “Truth or dare?”

_Please say ‘truth’._

Jinhyuk grins, “Dare.”

_Ever the daredevil._

“Ugh, I don’t even know what I should make you do.”

Jinhyuk laughs, he throws his head back in amusement as he does. His eyes almost twinkle with mirth. His laugh surrounds Wooseok, echoing around him in that same way that has his head spinning.

“Anything,” he says, smiling at him. _Dazzling as ever._

Wooseok stares. He’s captivated, entirely captivated by Jinhyuk’s smile—_by Jinhyuk_.

At eighteen, Wooseok is young, still confused about all of his feelings and too stubborn to want to leave his best friend alone. At eighteen, said best friend is 185-centimetres of drop-dead gorgeous and Wooseok doesn’t _want _to leave him alone. At that moment, all that runs through Wooseok’s head is the unwillingness of leaving Jinhyuk come morning. It’s Wooseok’s last day in the city and he throws caution to the wind.

“I dare you to kiss me.”

That catches Jinhyuk by surprise.

Jinhyuk freezes, “What?”

And for a split second, Wooseok regrets saying it. For a second, Wooseok wants to turn back time and pretend he never even had the _thought_ of saying such a thing. He has the urge to laugh it off and pretend it’s all just a joke—but the sound isn’t leaving his lips as he tries it. He wants to just laugh it off when he sees the look on Jinhyuk’s face.

But, he looks at Jinhyuk’s face and Jinhyuk’s cheeks are flushed with a light pink that wasn’t there before. Jinhyuk is staring at him with unwavering eyes. Jinhyuk is looking right at his lips.

Nothing escapes Wooseok’s gaze at the moment.

Wooseok sits up on the sofa and scoots a little closer to his best friend. He leans closer to him. He braces himself, gathering all his nerves and ignores the caution that loudly alarms him like a siren lamenting its warning against danger.

Wooseok takes a breath.

“I said _‘I dare you to kiss me’_,” he repeats. His nerves are spiking inside of him. He’s nervous and he can feel the almost suffocating sensation in the back of his throat. He keeps his eyes on Jinhyuk.

Jinhyuk laughs, nervously. He moves closer despite the surging nerves—Jinhyuk to Wooseok, Wooseok to Jinhyuk; he’s not sure who makes the move to be closer. He just knows that they’re closer than they’ve ever been before and Wooseok just wants to reach out to touch him.

“Wooseok, what are you saying?” he manages. The older boy swallows, “… we’re drunk,” he says.

Wooseok is so close to him, he can feel Jinhyuk’s breath fanning across his cheek. He leans closer.

“Hardly,” he whispers. Jinhyuk licks his lips and shifts his eyes. He’s nervous. Wooseok is, too.

“Hardly,” Jinhyuk echoes, barely a whisper. As if he still needs to take the time to process it, Jinhyuk blinks slowly. He considers his choices with his eyes wide, staring at Wooseok.

With the storm of emotions brewing in Wooseok’s chest, he can’t wait for Jinhyuk to make a decision. He wants to lean forward and kiss his best friend—see where it takes them. But the dare is Jinhyuk’s—he needs Jinhyuk to make the first move to kiss him. Wooseok waits with wide, innocent eyes.

“I’ve… always kind of wanted to see what it’s like to kiss you,” Jinhyuk murmurs softly. There is something about the way Jinhyuk looks at him that feels like childlike wonder. There is something in his eyes that looks like hopefulness. Wooseok looks at him. His heart thumps in his chest.

He hopes it’s more than just simple wonder.

He swallows and his fingers grip into Jinhyuk’s shoulder. He presses their foreheads together in a daring move. Jinhyuk holds his breath and Wooseok feels it.

“Do it,” he urges. “Kiss me.”

It’s all it takes. That’s all it takes for Jinhyuk to close the distance between them into a gentle kiss. He closes his eyes and leans forward to close the space between them.

It’s chaste. It’s nothing more than the soft brushing of their lips.

But for all that it is, it sends little sparks down Wooseok’s body. His heart flutters and he decides he likes the feeling of Jinhyuk’s lips on his. He likes the feeling that bursts in his chest when Jinhyuk kisses him.

It’s a little awkward—it’s their first kiss. Wooseok doesn’t remember the last time he kissed a boy but after he kisses Jinhyuk, he decides that all he cares about is kissing Jinhyuk.

He leans in and kisses him again.

And again.

And again.

Slow and steady, it becomes too evident that it’s more than just a dare. All too soon, Wooseok becomes too aware that he’s kissing his best friend a little too eagerly. All too soon, Jinhyuk’s cheeks are flushed with colour and he’s sitting too far away from Wooseok, shy.

A silence falls between them.

Jinhyuk is the one to break the silence.

Jinhyuk clears his throat quietly and reaches to link his pinky with Wooseok’s. The younger boy looks down at their entwined fingers with a small smile on his lips. He can’t hold it back.

“… hey, it’s my turn, right?” he asks softly.

For a second, Wooseok is confused.

He looks up at him.

Jinhyuk flashes a shy smile, he clarifies, “… our game.”

_“Ah,”_ Wooseok says. He looks down at the floor, suddenly feeling something ugly drag him down from the high. He draws an absent pattern on the floor with his finger, “… it’s your turn.”

He hears Jinhyuk swallow. He doesn’t want to look.

“Truth or dare, Wooseok?”

Wooseok shifts his eyes. He considers it for a moment.

“… truth,” he says. Jinhyuk squeezes his hand.

He sounds hopeful when he speaks.

“… you like me, right?”

Wooseok holds his breath. He looks down at his hands. They just kissed—_they just kissed._ _Did it mean anything to them? Was it just a part of the game? Is the hopefulness in Jinhyuk’s tone a figment of Wooseok’s hopeful imagination? _He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know any of the answers.

But Wooseok knows the answer to Jinhyuk’s question.

He swallows, “… I like you,” he utters. He wants to hide, suddenly.

Admitting your feelings to your best friend. It all feels too real. Wooseok looks away.

Jinhyuk is about to say something. Wooseok doesn’t want to hear it. He cuts him off, “Truth or dare?”

The hesitance before he responds tells Wooseok that he wasn’t expecting to be cut off.

“Truth,” he replies after a moment. Wooseok inhales sharply.

He pauses for a moment. His head is still spinning, still so unsure. He doesn’t dare to look at his best friend. He can’t do it.

Wooseok resists the urge to break down when he asks, “… how do you feel about me?”

A silence falls between them, again. Wooseok waits, nervously.

Jinhyuk inhales, “… I’ve had a crush on you since elementary school.”

Wooseok turns to look at him, surprised. It must have looked comical because Jinhyuk’s lips tug into a smile and he’s squeezing Wooseok’s hand again. He shrugs his shoulders with an innocent smile.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, incredulous. Jinhyuk looks away with a laugh.

“Why didn’t _you_ tell _me?_”

Wooseok splutters, “I—I didn’t think you liked me like that!”

Jinhyuk shrugs, again.

“And _I_ didn’t think you liked _me_ like that,” he says. “Your friendship is a lot more important to me than a crush. But… I mean, I guess… the feeling is mutual. I like you. You like me.”

Wooseok scoots closer to him. He looks up at Jinhyuk with wide eyes.

“What do we do about this?”

“I don’t know,” Jinhyuk answers him. “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do. You leave for university in the morning. What do we do about this?”

Wooseok is suddenly spurred on with a confidence he didn’t know existed in him.

He blinks rapidly, “We’ll make it work!” he exclaims, “_If_—if you want to date me. If you want to date me, we’ll make it work. Long-distance or whatever, we can make it work! We kept in contact when you were in Japan for vacation! We can make this work.”

He looks too hopeful, too desperate. He knows it but he can’t find it in himself to really care.

He wants this.

He wants Jinhyuk.

The older boy smiles at him, “… you’ll come back for your breaks, right?”

Wooseok nods, too quickly.

Jinhyuk’s eyes glitter and Wooseok is captivated by his gaze, again.

“We’ll make it work, right?”

Wooseok nods, again, too eager. Jinhyuk squeezes his hand.

He wants to say something more, Wooseok can see it in the way his lips part.

But there’s a sound that interrupts them, the sound of the front door being opened. Jinhyuk’s parents returning from the musical. Wooseok hears Jinhyuk’s mother’s voice.

“Honey?” She’s looking for Jinhyuk.

They stare at one another like deer caught in headlights.

Jinhyuk reacts first.

“Hi, mom! Um, Wooseok’s sleeping over tonight!” Jinhyuk yells to his parents.

He grabs Wooseok’s hand and runs to his room, abandoning the empty cans of beer in the living room.

When they fall against Jinhyuk’s bed, Wooseok feels light and like he’s sitting on clouds.

The sound of Jinhyuk’s laughter echoes around him and he feels like his heart might explode.

Wooseok decides: there’s something absolutely petrifying about moving away from the things that are familiar to you and stepping into a world you know nothing about. But, at the same time, there’s something amazing about being in love with your best friend.

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/yuseokki) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jjokkiri) ♡  
i still don't know what i'm doing.


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